Teething Rings
Providing teething rings for you baby can immediately reduce the pain that they are feeling as their little teeth start to cut through their gums. Checking out the alternatives for baby teething toys is a really smart thing to do, and I hope our little site can help you out in this.
Baby teething toys, in the form of rings, necklaces, blanket or other chewable items assist to relieve the pain of this process. This is part of a natural instinct to chew on items to help the overall process. The action of biting down on something provides relief. With such young children it is very important that any item they are chewing on is very robust and will not easily break, since small pieces can be a choking hazard. Baby teething toys are specifically designed to be chewed on by small babies and so are designed not to fall apart in their mouth and can stand up to the tough chewing ahead!
Teething rings are, as the name suggests, toys shaped liked rings. They can be made of plastic, rubber or wood and come with or without additional characters, keys or other stimulating shapes.
Teething rings may be filled with distilled water, which allows the ring to be refrigerated (not frozen) before being given to a teething baby. Teething rings should not be frozen as this is too cold for their little mouths. The refrigerator will cool the ring and the water sufficiently to provide relief. The coolness, in addition to the chewing can numb some of the pain often associated with teething as it (temporarily) reduces the blood flow to the gums. You may like to look out for a teething ring that has both a hard handle and a water filled part as some children find holding onto the cooled part of the ring too cold – the handle allows them both the benefit of the cooled ring for their gums and a normal hard handle for their hands.
The circular shape of a ring is easy for baby to hold and move around in their mouths as needed. Having said that, rings are often made with additional items attached to them to provide additional stimulation for baby. For example, sometime they have fingers attached so the ring looks a bit like a hand, or it some with keys and other shaped objects in bright colors to stimulate baby’s other senses while she is chewing away on the ring. Different size and shaped attachments also gives a baby the opportunity to reach different parts of their mouth with differently shaped items on a ring – eg the back molars.
Teething rings are often made of textured materials which also provide a massaging effect to the gums and helps to ease the teeth out. The textures can be knobbly or ribbed and are a reasonably subtle pattern. Wooden teething rings come to have additional texture with use, but can also achieve the massaging effect.
Teething rings, particularly plastic ones, should not be steamed, boiled or sterilized. They should be washed regularly in warm water or follow the manufacturer’s instructions.
